Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace

Studio Event

All tickets $35

Mon Oct 28, 2019

Barbara and David Zalaznick Studio

130 W 56th St, 5th Floor

Overview

Overview

This studio series takes audiences beyond the proscenium for intimate conversations and live performance excerpts from the great dance artists of today. Three events in Fall 2019 are hosted by dance critic and historian Alastair Macaulay.

At its premiere, Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace (1958) made little impression except on those performing the work, yet within a few years, it became recognized for its innovative use of space and time. It was performed by New York City Ballet in 1966, then by other major ballet companies around the world, and is now regarded as a masterpiece. Alastair Macaulay moderates a conversation with Cunningham stager Jean Freebury with performances by NYCB dancers Sara Adams, Devin Alberda, Emilie Gerrit, Gretchen Smith, Abi Stafford, and Andrew Veyette. Adam Tendler will accompany on the piano.

Watch clips of Summerspace and learn more about the dance in this recent New York Times article by Macaulay.

Alastair Macaulay was chief theatre critic of the Financial Times from 1994 to 2007, and chief dance critic of The New York Times from 2007 to 2018. In 1983, he was founding editor of the British quarterly Dance Theatre Journal; in 1988 and 1992, he was guest dance critic to The New Yorker. He has written the short biography Margot Fonteyn (1998) and an extensive book of interviews Matthew Bourne and his Adventures in Dance (2011). He has convened a series of seminars at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on ballets from Giselle to Afternoon of a Faun, and has given public presentations there on dance from The Sleeping Beauty to Merce Cunningham. He is currently a Director’s Fellow at the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts.